The true Thomas Jefferson

Front matter

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The "True" Biographies

With twenty -four full -page illustrations — portraits, appropriate views, and fac-similes — in each volume. Crown 8vo. Cloth, extra. Per volume : Cloth, ^2.00; half levant, ;$5.oo

Contents

CHAPTBR PAGB

I.— Jefferson's Family 17

II. — Jefferson as a Lawyer 55

II

It has always been an amiable fiction among historians, and Virginians generally, that Williamsburg, the capital of the colony, was a gay and gorgeous place, illuminated by the splendor of a titled governor and a vice-regal court. We read of balls, processions, and ceremonials of various sorts, of gilded coaches, rich apparel, queenly manners, and princely entertainments in imitation of those at Windsor Castle and Hampton Court, when, in fact, Williamsburg was a scattered village of ordinary wooden houses, most of them of a single story, and numbering only about two hundred in all. The population was less than one thousand souls, whites and blacks, including, as an early chronicler expresses it, " ten or twelve gentlemen's families, besides merchants and tradesmen." There were no sidewalks, no sewers, no water supply, and the grass grew in the streets. At the time of the greatest display of power and social elegance, it did not equal in appearance, convenience, or comforts any American village of equal population at the present day, and resembled the undeveloped towns of Kansas and Nebraska. The " Palace" of the governor, which was the centre of social excitement as well as official authority, was not superior in size or comfort to the homes of hundreds of thousands of village merchants throughout the land. The State-House was not more imposing that the court-house of the ordinary county town to-day, and the buildings of William and Mary College were insignificant compared with those that shelter the public schools in our western cities. But Williamsburg was then the social and intellectual centre of the South, and is identified with the career of many famous Virginians.

The surrounding country, far into the interior of the State, was peopled by rich tobacco barons, many of whom drank to excess, gambled recklessly, raced horses, patronized cock-fights, and were carried home by their slaves insensible from their tavern carousals. Drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, extravagance, disregard of financial obligations, and other moral delinquencies were looked upon with sympathy rather than censure. They owned large, fine houses, scantily furnished and devoid of the comforts which are considered necessary at the present day, but their sideboards were loaded with silver plate and rare china, and their cellars were filled with the costliest wines. Their hospitality was as reckless as the rest of their habits. Every man who had a house kept a hotel, where friends and strangers were received with the same open-handed cordiality and tolerated as long as they cared to stay, unless, perhaps, they became offensive in their cups or behaved in an ungentlemanly manner. The planters were attended by legions of slaves, and no gentleman could labor without losing caste. They were arrogant, but generous, equally reckless in morals and with money, and they had a code of honor peculiar to themselves. A man might debauch his neighbors, rob them at the gaming-table, impoverish his own family, and fall under the table in a drunken stupor without injury to his social position, but if he allowed himself to be called a coward or a liar his reputation could only be repaired with the rapier.

WiUiamsburg remains to-day very much as it was before the Revolution, — the same sandy soil and soft, dry air; a few venerable mansions and much-patched cottages; the old Bruton parish church and the dust of the colonial nobility that slumbers under its protecting shadows. _ Some of their descendants remain to cherish their pedigrees, their clawfoot furniture, their old clocks. Reminiscences and relics of historical characters spring up at one from every turn in a surprising and gratifying manner. Here Jefferson, Marshall, Monroe, and Tyler were college students, and Washington and Jefferson courted their wives; here Patrick Henry made his reputation as an orator, and John Marshall occupied a law-office in the main street. William Wirt, Edmund Randolph, and other famous men lived and loved and worked in Williamsburg, and probably more distinguished characters passed over its sandy roads " in the good old colony times" than over those of any other town of its size in North America. Two of the buildings — the court-house and the main dormitory of William and Mary College — were designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and the home of the president of the college is the only house in America that was built by a king. The original mansion was occupied by Lord Cornwallis as his head-quarters during the Revolution. When he retired it was taken possession of by the French allies and was accidentally burned. Louis XVI. of France heard of the disaster and sent over money to pay for its rebuilding.

The Widow Custis (she that was Martha Dandridge), afterwards the wife of Washington, made her home in Williamsburg. Her residence, the centre of social gayety, was burned some years ago, and its site, still strewn with the soot-covered bricks that fell in the fire, is now a part of the grounds of the insane asylum. Nothing remains but the kitchen — a small one-story house, which was detached, as is usual in the South, from the main structure, and thus preserved from destruction. It is now a tool-house for the gardeners of the institution. The Custis family and the Dandridges, from which Mrs. Custis came, were rich, hospitable, and aristocratic, and had several plantations in the neighborhood. While most of the courting was done there when Washington was a member of the House of Burgesses, the wedding took place about thirty miles away, in New Kent County, where the bride's family had their home. Her first husband, George Parke Custis, is buried in a private cemetery upon one of his plantations, about two miles from town, and two infant children in the town cemetery.

Lafayette promenaded the streets every day for months; Washington spent much time there, and the different houses in which he lived can still be pointed out. It is gratifying to have so much veneration and interest shown by the people in the preservation of historical structures. The residence of Chancellor George Wythe, with whom Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Henry Clay studied law and maintained a partnership for several years, was the head-quarters of Washington in 1 78 1, and is as well preserved as if built in the last decade. A long frame structure near by was the home of Edmund Randolph, the first Secretary of State under the Constitution, who had already been Governor of Virginia. His descendants still occupy the home. The residences of William Wirt,

W'^fprn^

John Marshall, and President John Tyler are still pointed out. The foundations of the old Capitol building, which was originally erected in 1705, restored after a fire in 1746, and then totally destroyed in 1832, have been unearthed by the Society for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and marked with a low coping of cement. It seems to have been a twin building, in the form of the letter H, connected by a colonnade.

Williamsburg was founded in 1632 and became the seat of government in 1698, when the State- House and the jail at Jamestown were burned. It was then called Middle Plantation, but w^as rechristened by Governor Nicholson in honor of the king. The three chief reasons for the removal, as stated by contemporaneous writers, were the destruction of the government buildings at Jamestown in what was known as the Bacon Rebellion against the authority of that testy old tyrant, Sir William Berkeley, because the College of William and Mary gave an air of scholastic dignity and social distinction to the place, and because " it was freer from the annoyance of moschetoes." The original town was composed of thret streets, wide and straight, with a cipher made of a '' W" at one end and an " M" at the other, in honor of King WiUiam and Queen Mary. The College stood at one end and the Capitol at the other. . The governor's " Palace" was accidentally burned by the French troops during the Revolution. The last occupant was Lord Dunmore, who resided in great state, attended by the pomp and formality of viceroyalty, and at that time there was a park, comprising three hundred and sixty acres, behind the mansion, which is now a pasture. The site of the '^ Palace" is occupied by a school for boys.

The three streets were named in honor of the princes of the royal house. The middle one is still called the Duke of Gloucester, and the others were named for the Duke of York and Prince Francis. The latter is now familiarly known as Jail Street.

The old court-house, which stands in the centre of the town and was designed by Wren, is a small but well-proportioned building, still occupied for judicial purposes. Here Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, John Marshall, William Wirt, Edmund Randolph, John Randolph, John Tyler, and other famous law3^ers of that time tried their cases. To-day it seems an humble theatre for their talents.

An octagonal building of brick, familiar to every American school-boy by reason of the pictures that have appeared in the geographies and histories, is shown as '' the Powder Horn," built by Alexander Spottswood in 1714 for an armory and powder magazine. Here was the scene of the first assembling of an armed force in the American colonies in opposition to the authority of the king, when Lord Dunmore, in 1774, fearing a mutiny among the colonies, removed the ammunition from '' the Powder Horn" to the ship-of-war Magdalene, which was then lying at Yorktown. The colony was thrown into a fit of excitement, which rapidly spread north and south, and the act was discussed in every settlement of the colony as an example of British tyranny.

General Washington was a member of the Masonic lodge, and the chair he occupied is still carefully preserved. The Williamsburg Gazette, the oldest newspaper in Virginia, and one of the oldest in the country, which first appeared on the sixth of August, 1736, is still published.

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The Bruton parish church, organized in 1632, and which, with perhaps the exception of a httle sanctuary at Santa Fe, is the oldest building now used for religious worship in America, is built of brick in the form of a Roman cross, with a stately spire, and has been thoroughly restored to its original condition. Upon the walls are interesting tablets. One of them, erected to the memory of Dr. William Cocke, announces that " his honoured friend Alexander Spottswood, Esquire, with the principal gentlemen of the Parish, attended his funeral, and, weeping, saw his corps interred at the west side of the alter in this church." There is a tablet to the memory of President Tyler bearing a long epitaph, a scholarly composition. The most precious relics are three sets of silver for the communion service. One came from the church at Jamestown, the first English church erected in North America ; another was presented to Bruton church by Queen Anne, and the third was a gift of George III.

The oldest tomb in the church-yard bears the date of 1664. Colonel John Page was buried there in 1692, and Alice Page, his wife, in 1678. The Blair family are buried near by, and nearly every member of the " First Families of Virginia" can trace his ancestry to some one whose half-obliterated epitaph is to be found within this sacred enclosure. Among the common colonists sleeps Lady Christine Stuart, a member of the royal house of Scotland, who married a Virginia gentleman and lived and died in Williamsburg. She w^as a niece of Mary, Queen of Scots, and is said to have inherited the grace and beauty of that unfortunate woman.

An imposing white shaft near the entrance covers the resting-place of Judge Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, who, his epitaph says, " was descended from Virginia's best blood," while over in the farther corner is a stone with this striking inscription :

" Here lies all the grave can claim of Mrs. Ann Timson Jones, Consort of the Rev. Scervant Jones.

Born I Sept. 1787

Bapt'd 3 Mar. 1822

Died 6 June 1849.

If woman ever yet did well ; If woman ever did excell ; If woman husband e'er adored; If woman ever loved the Lord If ever Faith and Hope and Love In human flesh did live and move; If all the Graces e'er did meet — In her, in her, they were complete.

My Ann, my all, my Angel wife !

My dearest one, my love, my life ! I cannot say or sigh farewell, But where thou dwellest I will dwell."

This epitaph was composed by a Baptist clergyman named Scervant Jones, a well-known, eccentric character in that part of the country for half a century, who had an odd way of mixing humor and piety. Mr. Jones lies beside his wife, and his tombstone bears a long epitaph of an apologetic character. It speaks of his many faults and frailties, but gives him credit for being a useful and well-meaning man. His enemies are invited to forgive him and the public to remember that he was more sinned against than sinning.

One of the stories they tell of Brother Jones is that while riding his circuit one day he stopped for rest and refreshment at the house of a planter named Towles. The family had finished dinner as he arrived, and the servants were directed to bring back to the table what was left on the platter. Mr. Jones said grace as follows :

" Good Lord of love, Look from above And bless the Towles Who ate these fowls And left the bones For Scervant Jones."

The list of the alumni of William and Mary College in early days reads like a roll of the Continental Congress and the first Constitutional Convention. It was the fountain-head of rebellion against tyranny and the inspiration of the apostles of the rights of men. Richard Bland announced from William and Mary in 1766 the startling doctrine that America was no part of the Kingdom of England, and Dabney Carr in 1773, as chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, here took the first step towards securing united resistance on the part of the colonies. Peyton Randolph, the first president of the Continental Congress; Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence; John Tyler, who first proposed a constitutional convention; Edmund Randolph, who by submitting what is known as '' the Virginia Plan" gave direction to its proceedings; John Marshall, who as chief- justice interpreted the meaning of the Constitution, and many others who bore active but less conspicuous parts in the formation of the government were educated at that institution. Seven of the eleven members of the Committee of Correspondence ; seven of the eleven members of the Committee of Safety; seventeen of the thirty-one members of the committee that reported the Declaration of Rights, four of the seven signers of the Declaration of Independence from Virginia, seventeen of the thirty-two members of the Continental Congress, five of the six judges of the first courts, three of the five speakers of the House of Delegates during the Revolution, two of the three delegates from Virginia to the Annapolis Convention, and four of the seven delegates to the Federal Convention, were graduates.

Three of the seven Presidents of the United States born in Virginia, four of the five judges contributed by that State to the Supreme Bench of the United States, sixteen of the twenty-seven United States Senators, three of the four speakers of the national House of Representatives, two of the three ambassadors to England, four of the six ministers to France, fifteen of the thirty-three Governors of Virginia, and twenty-one of the fortythree members of the Supreme Court of that State were alumni, and this honor roll might be continued indefinitely, not forgetting General Winfield Scott, who also was educated there.

Under the fi.oor of the chapel, which was built in 1729, rest the remains of Sir John Randolph and his two eminent sons, Peyton Randolph, first president of the Continental Congress, and John R.andolph, father of Edmund Randolph, who was. Secretary of State under Washington. Near them lie James Madison, the first president of the college after the Revolution; Lord Botetourt, the most popular of Virginia's royal governors, who died in 1771, and many other famous men. For many years after the Civil War the College was badly crippled, owing to the partial destruction of its buildings and the depletion of its income, but in 1893, under the leadership of Mr. Hoar in the Senate and General N. M. Curtis, of New York, in the House, an act was passed to pay the damages that were caused by the Union soldiers. Then the. venerable institution was galvanized into renewed life by its energetic president, Lyon G. Tyler, a son of the tenth President of the United States, five generations of whose family have been graduated from the institution.

William and Mary is the oldest college in America, although Harvard graduated the first class. In 1685 the Rev. James Blair was sent over to Virginia to act as a sort of deputy for the Bishop of London, who had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the colonial churches. They called him a '' commissary." In 1691 he returned to England to represent to the king and the bishop the necessity for an institution for higher education. He was kindly received by his sovereigns and by the clergy, and in February, 1692, the king granted him a charter and gave him two thousand pounds in cash and the revenues of certain crown lands. Seymour, the attorney-general, having received the royal command to draw up the documents, remonstrated. He saw no need of a college in Virginia. The patient Mr. Blair explained that it was needed to educate young men for the ministry, and begged the honorable attorney-general to remember that the colonists had souls to be saved as well as the people of England.

" D your souls !" exclaimed the imperious

Seymour. " Make tobacco !"

The college was named in honor of the two sovereigns, who endowed it with twenty thousand acres of land, the receipts from a tax of one penny a pound on tobacco exported, and the revenue from skins and furs. Robert Boyle, a famous philanthropist of those days, endowed it with a fund for the conversion and instruction of the Indians. Sir Christopher Wren, the greatest of English architects, drew the plans for the building. Dr. Blair was appointed the first president and five pro- 5 65 fessors, of Greek, Latin, mathematics, moral philosophy, and divinity, were imported. The first commencement took place in July, 1700, and a great concourse of people from all the colonies gathered at Williamsburg to witness the graduating exercises. They came from New York, New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and the Carolinas,^ and it was one of the events of that century.

The population of Virginia at this time was about forty thousand. Massachusetts had seventy thousand; Connecticut, thirty thousand; New Hampshire, ten thousand ; Rhode Island, ten thousand; New York, thirty thousand; New Jersey, fifteen thousand ; Pennsylvania, twenty thousand ; Maryland, twenty-five thousand ; North Carolina, five thousand; South Carolina, seven thousand. The total population of the colonies was about two hundred and sixty-three thousand.

The first Greek-letter fraternity — Phi Beta Kappa — was organised at William and Mary in 1776, and among the charter members were John Marshall, chief- justice, and Bushrod Washington, associate justice of the Supreme Court; Spencer Roane, who was considered the ablest jurist ever produced in Virginia ; John Brown and Stephen T. Mason, Senators from Virginia; William Short, minister to Spain and Holland, and Elisha Parmalee, a native of Massachusetts, who established chapters at Yale and Harvard when he returned home.

Although he was much attached to the old town and his alma mater, it was Jefferson who caused the removal of the seat of government to Richmond on the theory that the capital of a State should be as near as possible to its geographical centre.

When young Jefferson came to college at Williamsbiirg he brought with him all the requisites of the successful student, — perfect health, good habits, and an inquisitive intellect. He came from a pure and honest home, where he had learned nothing but what was good and honorable, and had passed through a course of preparation under careful and conscientious tutors. When five years old he attended an English school, and at nine became a boarding scholar in the family of the Rev. William Douglass, who had emigrated from Scotland to be tutor in the Monroe family, and afterwards established a school for boys on the banks of the James. Jefferson's father died in 1757, and his situation was touchingly described by him years afterwards in the letter previously referred to written to his eldest grandson (Thomas Jefferson Randolph) when the latter was sent from home to school for the first time. He writes :

'' When I recollect that at fourteen years of age the whole care and direction of myself was thrown on myself entirely, without a relative or friend qualified to advise or guide me, and recollect the various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to time, I am astonished that I did not turn off with some of them, and become as worthless to society as they were. I had the good fortune to become acquainted very early with some characters of very high standing, and to feel the incessant wish that I could ever become what they were."

He immediately made use of his liberty to change his school, and from what we know of the circumstances, we can infer that it was then he first developed that spirit of resistance to tyranny and religious intolerance which influenced his entire life. Parson Douglass was a hard man of the " Evangelical" type. He gave his pupils the sermons and lectures of Philip Doddridge for light reading and pounded religion as well as the languages and mathematics into them at the rate of si:^teen pounds sterling a year, as we see by the entries in Peter Jefferson^ account-books. James Maury, a Huguenot, of liberal views on religion, of jovial disposition, refined manners, and literary tastes, also kept a school in the neighborhood, and to him young Jefferson went to complete his preparations for college. Teacher and pupil became fast friends for life, and one of Jefferson's first acts after he became Secretary of State was to appoint Dr. Maury's son, also named James, consul to Liverpool, where he remained for forty-five years. Dr. Maury must have been a kind friend as well as a competent teacher, and exercised a powerful influence in shaping the character of the brilliant youth, who always regarded him with confidence and affection.

When Jefferson started for William and Mary College in 1760, on horseback, a five days' ride, he had never been farther than twenty miles from home, had never seen a town of more than twenty houses, and his acquaintance was limited to his school-fellows and the families of the farmers around Shadwell. Yet within a few months we find this awkward youth of seventeen the favored and frequent companion of Francis Fauquier, the most elegant and accomplished gentleman Virginia had ever seen; Doctor William Small, the most learned man in the colony, and George Wythe, the leader of its bar. Small was professor of philosophy and mathematics at William and Mary, having been induced to come from Edinburgh a few years before. Fauquier, a favorite of the king, was governor, and lived in the " Palace," where these four congenial spirits dined together "at a familiar table" two or three times a week. Why these men should have selected an unsophisticated student for their companion must be left for conjecture, but from them he received his culture and his first knowledge of the world.

Governor Fauquier introduced French novels, classical music, card-playing, and many new " vices" into the colony. Professor Small instilled free thought and a broad philosophy into the minds of his students. The results were felt soon after throughout the young nation, and Jefferson says " he fixed the destinies of my life." Already Small's liberal views on theology and kindred subjects were beginning to bring William and Mary College under suspicion among the orthodox, and for that reason James Madison was sent to Princeton, where the fountain of learning was undefiled. George Wythe, afterwards chancellor, the most brilliant young lawyer in Virginia, was just beginning his career of honor and influence, and it was his privilege to educate for the bar and prepare for public life Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Henry Clay. Wythe was a man of conscience as well as ability and wisdom. He was among the first to denounce the iniquity of slavery, and early emancipated his slaves. Henry Clay went from his office and inspiration to Kentucky, where his first political act was an attempt to induce that young Commonwealth to abolish slavery.

If Thomas Jefferson had been educated in a European capital he would probably have been an artist or an author. As his tastes then ran, he might have fixed upon architecture as his profession. At Williamsburg, with George Wythe for a daily associate, he needs must become a lawyer, and accordingly, in 1763, after two years at college, he entered Wythe's office as a student.

THE TRUE THOMAS JEFFER^N

When an old man, for the edification of a grandchild, Jefferson drew a beautiful sketch in high relief of his own virtues in boyhood, which seem precocious and unnatural. But we have better evidence in his character than in his words. Neither his mind nor his morals were tainted by his association with Francis Fauquier, the most agr-eeable but the most profligate Governor of Virginia, whose evil influence was felt for generations. It speaks well for Jefferson's social attractions that he was admitted to the circle of older and accomplished men over which Fauquier presided, and for his moral stamina that he did not acquire vicious habits. No ordinary college student could have commanded such a social position or resisted the temptations it entailed. According to his own account he must have been a model youth and a remarkable student. He says that young men sought his advice as to what they should read, and parents consulted him concerning the education of their sons. He was asked to suggest a course of study for Madison when the latter was seventeen and himself twenty-three. He had already written a preposterous schedule of reading for a young man about to enter upon the law, and from that we may learn both what he claims to have practised himself and what he laid down for Madison, Monroe, and other young friends.

The student, duly prepared for the study of the law by mastering Latin and French, he says, and by a course of those " peculiarly engaging and delightful" branches, natural philosophy and mathematics, must divide each day into portions, and assign to each portion the studies most proper for it. Beginning at da3dight, until eight in the morning he should confine himself to natural philosophy, morals, and religion ; reading treatises on astronomy, chemistry, anatomy, agriculture, botany, international law, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. Religion, during these early morning hours, was to be considered under two heads, — " natural religion" and " religion sectarian." For information concerning religion the student was advised to apply to the following sources: ''Bible; New Testament; commentaries on them by Middleton in his works, and by Priestley in his ' Corruption of Christianity' and ' Early Opinions of Christ;' the sermons of Sterne, Massillon, and Bourdaloue." From eight to twelve a.m. he was to read law and condense cases,. " never using two w^ords where one will do." From twelve to one he was advised to " read politics," in Montesquieu, Locke, Priestley, Malthus, and the " Parliamentary Debates." In the afternoon he was to divert his mind with history; and, when evening came, he might regale himself with literature, criticism, rhetoric, and oratory. As an alternative amusement the student was recommended in the evening " to write criticisms of the books he read, to analyze the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, to read good English orations and pleadings with closest attention to the secrets of their excellence, to compose original essays, and to plead imaginary causes with a friend."

He used to tell his grandchildren that when he was a law student he kept a clock on a shelf opposite his bed; and his rule was to get up in the summer mornings as soon as he could see what o'clock it was and begin his day's work at once. In the winter he rose at five and went to bed at nine.

We learn from his early letters, however, that while at college he was quite extravagant in dress and in his outlay for horses. He was very exacting of his groom in having his horses always beautifully kept, and it was his habit, when his ridinghorse was brought up for him, to brush his white cambric handkerchief across the animal's shoulders, and send it back to the stable if any dust were left on the handkerchief.

Early in the year 1767, about the time of his twenty-fourth birthday, he was admitted and began at once the practice of his profession. Unlike most beginners at the bar, he was not compelled to wait for clients. He was fortunate in his generation and in the circumstances which surrounded him. In 1642 the Legislature of Virginia passed a law expelling all " mercenary attorneys" — that is, paid attorneys — from the courts, and for nearly eleven years not a lawyer in the State could take a fee from a client for serving in court. As the rogues took advantage of this, the law was repealed and attorneys were licensed; but they were required to take an oath not to oppress clients nor encourage litigation. No sooner were they back at the bar again than they began to make mischief, and the House of Burgesses in 1657 decided to '' eject" lawyers entirely from the courts. The law appears upon the statute-books of that date and remained in force twenty-three years. In the meantime people who had litigation were compelled to rely upon their neighbors to assist them in examining witnesses and making pleas. But in 1680 the House of Burgesses, at that time composed exclusively of farmers, passed an act allowing the lawyers to appear again in court, and fixing their compensation at rates which were intended to be liberal. The ordinary fee for trying a case in the chief court of the colony was five hundred pounds of tobacco, and in the county courts, one hundred and fifty pounds.